Glossary:entailment
Warning:
The material on this page has been created as part of a seminar. It is still heavily under construction and we do not guarantee its correctness. If you have comments on this page or suggestions for improvement, please contact Manfred Sailer.
This note will be removed once the page has been carefully checked and integrated into the main part of this wiki.
Entailment
[ɛnˈteɪl.mənt]
Definition
Entailment describes a relation between sentences. Sentence A entails sentence B, but not the other way around.
If sentence A is true, sentence B is true.
If sentence B is true, it cannot be concluded that sentence A is true.
Examples
(A) Paul broke the window. (B) The window is broken.
(A) Paul and Jake went to a dinner party. (B) Paul went to a dinner party.
Related terms
Literature
Bieswanger, Markus & Annette Becker. 2006. Introduction to English Linguistics (3rd edition). Tübingen and Basel: A. Francke Verlag.
Rice, Hugh. 1986. “Entailment” in: Mind, Vol. 93, No. 379, 345-360. (accessed via Jstor, Oct/23/12).